The First U.S. Jet Strike Against ISIS Cost More Than India’s Entire Mission To Mars, No Big Deal

Maybe I have too much pure America hombre in me, but I’m always surprised to learn that other countries are doing the same cool shit that the U.S. does. India made a successful trip to Mars?! The fuck did this happen? Did they rent an American shuttle, throw a ton of money at our astronauts, and use our Florida launching facilities?

I was confident we were the only country capable of making inner-galactic round-trippers like that. THAT’s the big news here if you’re asking me, and not that India’s entire Mars vacay was cheaper than America’s first F-22 Raptor strike against the ISIS fuckfaces, one that we knocked out before the sun even came up.

The F-22 Raptor, the Air Force’s shiny new toy that is capable of stealthily delivering airstrikes via precision-guided missiles, made its battle debut this week. These things are expensive, because the U.S. military doesn’t cut corners, but also because it’s a stealth fighter jet and I guess it costs a fuckton to make an aircraft invisible to radar. Go figure. The F-22 Raptor costs about $150 million. No biggie.

The Pentagon confirmed on Sept. 23 that the $150 million jets had struck an ISIS command and control facility in Raqqah, Syria with a satellite-guided bomb. That was right after an initial wave of U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles hit their targets around Aleppo and Raqqah.

But the Raptors’ first mission wasn’t cheap. Together, the missiles and airstrikes cost at least $79 million to pull off, according to a Daily Beast tally.

That’s more expensive than India’s mission to Mars, which was successfully completed Wednesday at a cost of just $74 million.

“Trust me, I’m pre-med” means you’re a bio major. An undergrad degree with a pre-med focus does not qualify you for work as a doctor. Majoring in Aerospace Engineering, on the other hand, does qualify you to work as an Aerospace Engineer. It is not the same thing.

No it doesn’t. You need to take a PE exam to sign off plans as a professional engineer. For aerospace, unlike civil, it’s not necessarily required but it’s often recommended and considered a mark of respect in the industry. I’m currently an EIT (stage before PE). In other words, “Trust me, I’m pre-med”.

The power move would have been outsourcing this bombing to India for barely-above-slavery prices. Sure the quality would have been shit, and telecommunications would be beyond maddening, but it would have let us put that money to real important stuff, like getting our hands on a Brooklyn Decker sex tape.

It’s not a great comparison in terms of our mars rover to India’s probe. Ours landed on the surface, something that is ridiculously more difficult to do than orbit the planet. We’ve been doing that since the 70’s and India just got there.

I dig the support for the American ass whooping.
The F-22 Raptor has over 180 documented dog fight wins and the program began back in the 1990’s. It also has never lost a dog fight to this day. The new F-35 Program just cost us a whopping $1.5 Trillion via Northrupp and Grumman. That program has three different versions of the F-35 so we should all look forward to more ass kickings against ISIS, other dumbass opposing regimes or coalitions and the complete overshadowing of our military to any other in the world.
#America